(Thanks to realchristianity.wordpress.com for making this available again. My original is still locked up on my old server. And I decided to put it at the top of the queue one more time.)

Take your ministry to the next level. Walk in divine prosperity. Get the break through you keep promising the sheeple. Drive the best cars, live in the biggest house, fly the best planes and patronize the best restaurants.

The Dummies guide tells you how to convince people to give you more money than they can afford to give you. But not only that, it teaches you how to make those people think you are doing them a favor by taking the money. We give you the secrets for convincing people to pay you their tithes BEFORE they pay their rent or electric bill. Do you want to make people financially dependent on you? We’ll tell you how.

You want to be worshiped as if you are the Christ? The Dummies guide teaches you how to walk, talk, and threaten so that even the most stubborn (though stupid) sheeple will be willing to quote you rather than the Bible.

Are there people in your congregation who regularly disagree with you and base that disagreement on an accurate understanding of Scripture? The Dummies guide gives you foolproof instructions on how get them out of your congregation and how to make the sheeple believe they are being obedient to God when they turn their backs on the rebel.

Once you begin to read the book and practice the techniques it promotes, you should see an almost immediate increase in your income. Tip toeing around you should increase by at least twenty percent – from the first week of practicing what the book preaches.

How do you intimidate without appearing to be doing so? It’s in there.

How do you get the congregation to buy you a house bigger than the apartment buildings most of your congregants live in? It’s in there.

Maybe you want to be the top earner in your state? Just like the rest of the stuff you want to do – it’s in there.

“Pulpit Pimping for Dummies” provides you all the information and all the guidance you need to apply the information to get to where you want to be, to get what you want out of life, to rake in as much money, cars, and other stuff as you want.

There’s even a special Scumbag section that has tons of information on how the best of the scumbags get away with sexual harassment and abuse, spanking, raping, incest and just plain fooling around with some of the Gospel groupies. We tell you how to intimidate folks to keep silent, what Scriptures to use to keep the sheeple thinking they should feel bad about doubting whatever you tell them, and how to make sure you are repeating “touch not God’s anointed” often enough to be effective but not often enough to lessen the impact.

What are the five characteristics of a worship leader that will make sure your offering always grows? They’re in there.

How do you pick the right men as deacons or elders to make sure you can take the church in whatever direction you want? Yep. It’s in there.

Want to know how to talk your way around the clear teaching against co-pastors, female pastors, and bishops, or female elders? You guessed it. It’s in there.

If you order “Pulpit Pimping for Dummies” today, you will be on your way to becoming the top dog in your community. And before too long, you’ll be reaching Big Dogdom in your county and state. With a consistent application of the material, you could even end up on TBN and other venues for increasing your fame and ability to rake in money.

Here are some unsolicited testimonies from folks who have followed the advice in my book:

“I was having trouble getting the congregation to just buy me a new suit. But once I started following the advice of “P-P for Dummies” they not only buy me suits now, they even buy me cars. I had to build a new garage to handle all the overflow.” – Bishop Gary Hawkins

“I thought Pastor Melvin was crazy the first time I read his book. But after growing the church from eight people who wanted to follow Christ to 5,600 people willing to follow me any where, and give me anything, I recommend the book. Sure Melvin’s crazy – crazy like a fox.” – Bishop Eddie Long

“I went from a traditional Baptist church with two hundred families housed in a dinky little building in the center of Glenarden Maryland, to more than 7,000 members housed in mega church structure costing more than $55 million dollars. And I convinced everyone to build it in the middle of nowhere. Thanks “P-P for Dummies!” John K. Jenkins

“It’s hard to believe that people can be manipulated so easily. The stuff Melvin shared in the book works on television and over the internet just as well as it does in a church building. I would never have been able to get that second jet, the Citation, without his advice.” Ken Copeland

“Melvin helped me to understand that it doesn’t matter what you preach, whether you deny the diety of Jesus or the effectiveness of His death on the cross. He showed me how to get a really great business jet, residences in several cities, including New York City, and a load of cash like you wouldn’t believe. If you want to be the best Pulpit Pimp you can be, buy Melvin’s book. It will pay for itself by the next time you take up an offering using his advice.” Creflo Dollar

These are just some of the testimonies people have written in, proving that “Pulpit Pimping for Dummies” is a valuable tool for you to add to your preaching toolbox. With the added income practically guaranteed, you’ll be able to buy all those other books (commentaries, bible dictionaries and crap) so you can impress the one or two kind of smart sheeple you occasionally allow into your house.

Order it now. Get your break through. Be the best pimp you can be with no more effort than it takes to go out to dinner – at the best restaurants of course.

A couple of days ago, I posted a new page in the section to the right – Ruminations of a Young Agnostic. It’s a link to a podcast called “Doc Jones.” It’s the production of one of my sons, an Army doctor.

Though we “raised” him as a Christian for the 18 years he lived at home, about six or seven years ago he announced that he was an atheist. Then he came to his senses and graduated to agnostic. Even he recognizes that it’s somewhat arrogant and silly to state categorically that there is no God.

Give his podcast a listen. He covers interesting topics, generally from a secular world view. And you get to hear stories about me as I raised him. And he explains why he rejects Christianity (I think that’s in one of the later ‘casts). Give it a listen. You get to see how those who reject the Bible think. Plus, I think he’s pretty good. Of course, I’m somewhat biased. I’m his dad.

As I’ve said before, every once in a while I think I should stop blogging. There are a lot of people out there who do a lot of what I do. But every once in a while, a comment like this one comes through the system:

“Thank you for this blog. My spirit is so grieved because I just recently left this church and I’d been going back and forth about the decision.

I just began to truly get into the Word a little over a year ago, but the Holy Spirit is real and He began to snatch me out of darkness right away! My God, I was so ashamed to realize how blind I was. But I have repented and I praise God for His grace and helping me see the truth about these mega pastors.

TD Jake’s was one of the first the Lord revealed to me as a false teacher and things began to open up for me from there. It just seemed JKJ was involved in some questionable events (ex: Together 2016; The Gathering) and then I learned that TD Jakes his “spiritual teacher” (I never knew that before). These things just weren’t adding up.

Then I began to notice how off base some of the guest pastors were, including Keith Battle who, at a service sometime in late summer 2016 shared with the congregation that he listens to Joel Osteen when he’s feeling down. The man actually said that after Osteen’s sermons he feels ‘All the way up!” (*Which he sang from the pulpit…. btw: All the way up is a secular song by rapper Fat Joe*). Joel Osteen??? Fat Joe????

But the congregation jumped to its feet with excitement and, as we filed out, many spoke of how “that was a good word”!

Then, I began to examine some of pastor Jenkins’ sermons compared to the truth of God. That was so hard to do because I didn’t want to believe that he, too, was “one of them”! God, my heart hurts.

I’m coming to see that there are very few churches preaching God’s truth! So much “leaven”! (Please let me know if there are any good churches in the area who ALWAYS preach the Word in its true context.) Anyway, please keep exposing and praying for all who have strayed from the truth. And I pray more begin to seek the Lord’s Word for the truth rather than blindly digesting what they are fed from the pulpit. These poor souls are perishing and don’t even know it. :(“

Yes, there is a local church in which the Word is preached, in which the elders work at feeding the sheep with care. That place? Temple Hills Baptist Church.

They’re working their way through a series of sermons on salvation, what it does, what it means. You can listen to previous sermons there as well.

By the way – you should stay away, far, far away from FBCG. God has opened your eyes, don’t tempt Him by running back to the error. It’s a little like the dog that returns to its vomit (Prov 26:11). I have a couple of friends who know better but remain there anyway. I fear for their discernment.

Unless one of the dozens of First Baptist Church of Glenarden on the Kettering’s (FBCGotK) shiny new vans comes to pick her up, Pretty Peggy can’t get to FBCGotK. So I take Pretty Peggy to FBCGotK maybe once a quarter. An odd turn of events made the visit happen this past Sunday (2 October 2016). It was an interesting visit. It was also a very depressing visit.

It took us over half an hour to get into the parking lot. It also took us half an hour to get out of the parking lot. We had to sit through endless rounds of the repetition of the choruses of a couple of songs. The repetition went on for at least twenty to twenty-five minutes. It was interspersed with calls to stand, shout, and clap for Jesus. Think of listening to the following for half an hour or more.

One of the reasons I take Pretty Peggy to FBCGotK every once in a while is to give her the opportunity to compare the contents of John’s preaching with the contents of the sermons by the elders at Reformed churches or at any church that is really trying to speak from the Bible to the people. We have, on occasion, taken one of John’s sermons from online and analyzed its contents. We go over the various ways he makes the Scripture say what he wants it to say and not what God is saying to the church. But it turns out this past Sunday that we would have been better off listening to one of his sermons on the internet.

After the half hour’s wait to park, the mindless singing, standing up for John when he came in, more singing, and another rendition by John of the song we had been singing, he told us he wasn’t going to preach. He pointed out that he could feel the presence of the Lord. He assured us that he knows the presence of the Lord when he feels it. And one of the things John came to understand from the presence of the Lord was that he was not to preach at either the 10 o’clock or the 12 o’clock services. God went on to tell him that Sunday was Miracle Sunday. That’s right, the Spirit of God said John was not to preach because it was Miracle Sunday, not Feed the Sheep Sunday.

Apparently, during bible study the previous Tuesday, a woman asked the church to pray for her child who was diagnosed with liver cancer. On Friday or Saturday, John was informed that the child’s “levels had improved.” As a result, John got a word from God that Sunday would be Miracle Sunday.

He then did an outstanding imitation of a TV pimps? If you have a situation you can’t find any way out of? Come on down to the altar. Financial issues? Come forward for your miracle. Behind your payments for a car you never should have bought? Come on down, claim your miracle on Miracle Sunday and let God show you a way where there was no way.

You remember when the Apostles went around granting people miracles in their circumstances, don’t you? Remember the man who had lost all of his money and was going to have to close his bakery until the Apostles spoke a miracle into his life? Neither do I. Or how about the man who had a sick ox and Apostles prayed and God made a way out of no way when someone gave him a fully trained adult ox to replace it? I thought not. ‘Cause neither do I.

John’s primary job as the pastor is to feed the sheep, the congregation. In John, chapter 21, verses 15-18 Jesus tells Peter to tend to His sheep and to feed His sheep, not announce a Miracle Sunday and make people a nebulous promise of an equally nebulous miracle. The Apostles said their time would best be spent in prayer and the study of the Word. Do you think they prayed to see if they should declare a particular Sabbath a miracle Sabbath? In instructing the Church, Paul, in 1 Timothy 3:2, says the overseer, the pastor, is to be able to teach. Anything there about “knowing the presence of God?” In Titus 1:7, the overseer, the pastor is to hold fast to the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able to exhort in SOUND DOCTRINE and refute those who contradict.

Maybe you can show me where the pastor is supposed to tell us about the presence of God and to pronounce a day as Miracle Sunday.

Try as I might, I can’t find an example of any of the Apostles holding a miracle Sunday. I can’t find an example of a congregation getting together in order to experience miracles because the preacher said that today is the day of miracles. I can’t even find an example of the Church getting together and limiting their time together to shouting, clapping and singing repetitiously. But maybe I’m missing something.

Can God heal? Can He perform miracles? Certainly. God can do whatever He chooses to do. In fact Psalm 115:3 says “Our God is in the heavens; He does as he pleases. In Daniel, He goes so far as to say “Who can turn His hand?”. He can do whatever He wants. Period. So the question is not “Can God still work miracles?”. The question is “Does the Bible provide for not preaching because the pastor says the Spirit told him that today is Miracle Sunday?”

God calls us to standards. When Aaron’s sons did something other than what God told them to do, He slew them. When Eli’s deadbeat sons did other than what God told them to do, He slew them. When Saul was told to slaughter everything among the Amalekites and he didn’t, the kingdom was torn from him.

The pastor/elder’s function is to teach, not proclaim a day of miracles. Unless, of course, you don’t mind cheapening the idea of miracles.

What was the purpose of miracles in the New Testament? Was it to relieve someone of some financial burden? Was it to keep Vito, Don Corleone’s strong man from making you sleep with the fishes ? I think not. Was it to testify to the power of the gospel of God and segue to a presentation of the Gospel? Definitely. Throughout Acts you see miracles not in response to some selfish desire, but as a way of testifying to the Gospel and the authority of those who preached it.

How did proclaiming Sunday to be a Miracle Sunday accomplish any of that? Simply put, it didn’t.

If I was a cynical man, I’d bet John Kenneth Jenkins Sr. declared Sunday to be a miracle day because he didn’t have anything to say to the congregation. If you can recall, over ten years ago he announced that he was no longer going to prepare a sermon for Sunday. Instead, he would read and pray and then let the Holy Spirit direct him on what he should preach that day. Apparently, the Holy Spirit, in contradiction to the Bible, declared last Sunday (October 2, 2016) to be Miracle Sunday.

Oh, and did you notice the good pastor had his wife to pray on Sunday? Care to take any bets on when he announces her as the co-pastor? Several years ago, when I first set up this site, I guessed it’d be within a couple of years. But I was wrong. However, given what she did on Sunday, I think the time is drawing near. Then we can see how many of the members of the congregation actually pay attention to what the Bible says (It nowhere mentions wives serving as co-pastors or women serving as pastors/elders) and how many of them will roll over and accept what John Kenneth Jenkins, Sr. puts over on them.

More and more it seems the blind are leading the stupid. We have T. Dexter appearing on Oprah’s show. The Preachers are out there imitating the world. And now, Paula White appears on the Steve Harvey Show to give marital advice.

A couple of weeks ago Ms. White was a guest on the Steve Harvey show. She was there to counsel a couple who are having difficulties that revolve around religious differences. She is a “minister” (whatever that is) and he refuses to go to church.

First, let’s remember that Paula White has been divorced twice and married three times. While I am tending to give her a pass on her first divorce (she was a teenager and probably as dumb as most teenagers), her second one is more problematic. We wrote an article on her here. last year. You can see it here . Her counseling a couple on making a marriage work wouldn’t be such a big deal except for the fact that she advertises her church as the place where she is delivering spiritual truths that transform lives.

Her life does not seem to be overly transformed (two divorces and three marriages; both of the later marriages to previously divorced men).

Steve Harvey keeps insisting he is saved. While I can’t see the man’s heart and no one wears a label saying “SAVED” stitched to their forearm, I can hear his mouth and the sexual innuendos he continuously throws out during the show. The latest one, for instance, had a male stripper giving a member of the audience a lap dance. I guess I should be glad that at least the audience member was a woman. These actions completely negate any confession of faith he may wish to present. Last week he taught a woman how to tell people to kiss her behind (expletive cleaned up).

Finally, what about the couple having the problems? There’s the husband, York, who doesn’t want to waste his time in church. He’s an agnostic. Either that or he is incredibly immature as a Christian. I can see him agreeing to come on the show. As an agnostic, he just doesn’t know any better.

On the other hand, the woman, Yvette, professes to be a Christian, a woman who loves God, who is so serious about it, in the words of the show’s producers, she became an ordained minister. Why in the world would she go to either Steve Harvey or Paula White for advice? The one good thing is her expression when Paula talked about having love and having God. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

So we’re going to have Paula White, the woman who left her second husband because of “irreconcilable differences,” counsel them on reconciling their differences? Really? Why not have Bill Clinton counsel a couple on the need for faithfulness and monogamy?

While Paula was “counseling” the couple, she said: ‘If you have love, you have God.”

What? Maybe she meant if the love of God dwells in you, then God dwells in you. Because only those who have God can have the love of God. Maybe that’s what she meant. The Bible says: He who has the Son, has the life. He who does not have the Son does not have the life (1 John 5:12).

Here’s the video.

Steve Harvey’s behavior is really inconsistent with his profession just on the most basic level. James, chapter 3 tells us:

9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; 10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. 11 Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.

But he again shows his lack of understanding by inviting Paula White to speak.

For years, Steve Harvey has been professing Christ. But I have to say he seems further away from that confession as each day goes by.

Paula White? She is simply showing herself to be one who will do whatever it takes to have her fame, even if it is at the expense of those who tune in and take for true the swill she dispenses.

Stay away from these people. Warn your Christian friends about them. Talk to your unsaved friends for as long as they will listen.

As the culture becomes increasingly hostile to Christianity, it appears the shepherds are becoming more like the world and less able (or less willing) to train us to stand against the world. They have become entertainers, showmen, and sometimes clowns. That which is holy is treated like muck.

A new television program has been rolled out by Fox Television. It’s called “The Preachers.” It features four preachers in a talk show format. The preachers? E. Dewey Smith, Orrick Quick, John Gray, and Jamal “Babies Across America” Harrison Bryant.
God talks to Orrick Quick. No, I mean He talks to him. In fact he gave Orrick a typically Word of Faith message: “This will be the year of miracles for you and your ministry.”

I always wonder why God never gives these people messages like: “You are going to go through a severe trial. But in your weakness, the world will see my strength. I will accompany you through the fire so don’t fret it.” Alas, they never get those kinds of messages. But I digress.

Last week, the preachers interviewed Monique and her Husband Sidney Hicks. Apparently your boys wanted to get the story on open marriages. After seeing the interview, that’s seems to be the only purpose I could see.

Here’s the interview. When you finish, let’s talk.

Here is some of what the couple said:

The key to an open marriage is that we have a conversation (2:47)

The Hosts call them Believers. He seems to think they are Christians (2:50)

Sidney asks us “Who am I to tell her what she can and can’t do? (2:59)

The sin is in her doing it after he tells her not to. That is the sin, not the fornication.(3:10)

They then used the concept to get rid of the concept of infidelity (3:40)

And here is what the preachers said in response:

Zero

Nada

Zip

Jamal is continuing to show his unsuitability to be a pastor/elder/shepherd. He already has several children – not by his wife. His wife left him for repeated infidelity. Even the unsaved know the man is a pulpit pimp. Click here.

But be warned, the language is very strong. You might have to pour anointed oil on your ears once you finish. I’m not kidding.

While Sydney and Monique were talking, neither of the hosts said anything to rebut what they were saying. In fact, the two hosts asked such things as “How do you find a balance to open marriage and keeping the bedroom sacred?” What?!?! That’s like asking “How do you find a balance between stealing from your employer and being a loyal employee.

Stay as far away from these men as possible. Don’t listen to them. Don’t give them any of your money. Don’t give them any of your time. Warn people away from them.

By the way, here’s a young fellow’s take on the episode. So maybe it’s notjust me.

If you were the pastor of a large church and responsible for the souls within that congregation (Hebrews 13:7; Jer 50:6; Ezekiel 3:17), would you allow a man who denies the deity of Jesus Christ, denies the accuracy and inspiration of the Bible, denies the resurrection, views the Qur’an as superior to the Bible, believes that God appeared in the person of Master W. Fard Muhammad in July of 1930 and that he was the long awaited Messiah of the Christians and the Mahdi of the Muslims, and believes that Jesus’ body is sealed in a glass tube filled with a liquid and is still in a tomb near Jerusalem to speak to your flock?

What if you are a member of a church and your pastor allowed someone who believed these things to preach from the pulpit? Would you find it necessary to walk away from the church and its leadership?

If you were one of the subordinate leaders at the church, would you tender your resignation and walk away?

A couple of reasons the pulpit pimps are able to run such a successful and profitable game on churches (Black and White) are because the answer to the first question is, all too often, “yes.” And , sadly, the answers to the second and third questions are “no.”

A church in Southeast DC, supported by a friend of mine, is having a youth revival. Yes, I know. The idea of scheduling a revival whether it is for the youth, the aged, the smart, or the stupid is nowhere to be found in Scripture. And yes, it is firmly rooted in tradition. But that’s beside the point.

I explained to my friend that one of the preachers – Akil Dickens – is the youth minister at Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal church. That church (Ebenezer AME) is pastored by Grainger Browning. His lovely wife, Jo Ann, is the co-pastor. (Again, I know. There is no such arrangement within Scripture. But that’s not why I’m writing this.)

If you recall, several years ago, Louis “Calypso Louie” Farrakhan tried to recreate the very profitable Million Man March with the Millions More March. As a part of preparing for and publicizing the event, Calypso Louie preached at Ebenezer AME to a packed out sanctuary. While I would have preferred to use a more neutral word like “spoke”, he did a great deal more than simply speak about the march. I know. I was there in the crowd.

The Muslim leader shared his vision, speaking in the crowded sanctuary of Ebenezer AME Church, a guest of Pastor Rev. Grainger Browning, and his wife, Rev. Joann Browning. Popular vocalist Erykah Badu led the singing of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”—the Black National Anthem—as a way, she declared, to help chase any lingering fear from the room.

Grainger introduced him as a very godly man. While behind the pulpit, Calypso Louie denied the deity of Jesus Christ, promoted the Qur’an, knocked Christianity, promoted Mohammed, and generally insulted the people in the sanctuary. How did Grainger come to consider him godly if Grainger knows he believes these things? Giving him the benefit of the doubt, how could Grainger have been dumb enough not to know he believed these things? And we won’t even talk about the mother ship orbiting the Earth.

Sadly, Grainger never stopped him or corrected him. Sadder still, the congregation seemed in complete agreement with him. They enthusiastically peppered his speech with lots shouts of “Praise God” and “Thank you Jesus.”

Akil Dickens sits under the leadership of Grainger Browning – and his lovely wife Jo Ann. I suggested to my friend that anyone who is willing to ignore what Grainger did is not fit to lead or teach the church’s youth. And by “the church” I mean the universal church, the Body of Christ. Grainger – and his lovely wife Jo Ann – clearly demonstrated they should not be the pastor or co-pastor of people seeking the truth of God.

My friend’s response was interesting. He said “Nobody’s perfect. We just need to accentuate the positive.” He even mentioned that he had attended one of the nearby Nation of Islam (NoI) mosques (#4) and was surprised to find that the speaker used the Bible more than he did the Qur’an. Apparently that makes them a little more acceptable in his eyes.

Let me ask you this: Would any of you have a problem if your pastor brought in a Jehovah’s Witness to preach one Friday night? They use the Bible (sort of). Or how about a Mormon? Would that be okay? They use the Bible too. AND they’re very nice people. Does the fact that both groups deny the deity of Jesus Christ matter? Would it be okay as long as the JWs don’t talk about Jesus being the Archangel Michael or the Mormons mention that Adam is our God and Satan is Jesus’ half brother?

My friend still doesn’t understand that issues like this go way beyond expecting perfection from some one. This gets down to being willing and able to defend the foundations of the faith. If you are not willing to stand for those foundations, how will you ever be able to teach them?

Doctrine matters. It is the thing that separates us from non-Christians, be they Mormons, JW’s, Catholics, or Buddhists and Hindus. Grainger had absolutely no business exposing that congregation to that fount of poison and false doctrine known as Calypso Louie. His staff had no business letting him do it. If no one complained, they are complicit in the violation of trust. If they did complain but remained under Grainger, they are still complicit. Either way, they have demonstrated a lack of faithfulness to Christ and have demonstrated that without repentance, they should not be allowed to “minister” to the youth, or anyone else for that matter.

Unfortunately, any insistence on standing for sound doctrine, for faithfulness to the doctrines delivered to us once and for all, will get you accused of being legalistic. Which, of course, is what my friend ended up saying.

People, work to keep the church faithful to Jesus Christ. If it means you don’t get to keep your friends, so be it. If it means you alienate your family, then you have to be willing to pay that price. But as John and Peter said in Acts 4:19-20, we should give heed to God, not men.

Too often, the shepherds are willing to compromise for one reason or another. I cannot judge the motives of Mr. and Mrs. Browning or of Akil Dickens. I can only address their compromise in being willing to associate so closely with a man so clearly hostile to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It’s been a while, but I wanted to make sure I kept my readers informed on how me and my church are doing. Believe me, it’s been great because it’s been really, really profitable for me. Click here for the previous update.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about Praise Immanuel Mighty Prince Temple (aka P.I.M.P Temple). I’ve given you a little history about the church. You know, things like how we came to hire Vicki “Boom Boom” Parker, the former exotic dancer, as the main performer…er…the ministry lead in the Liturgical Dance Ministry; how we built up the transportation ministry using the, um, skills of “Keys” MacMillan a mostly reformed car thief; and how our motto “Give until it hurts and then watch God work” keeps people giving to the ministry even when it makes no sense to give.

The truth is, I developed a set of principles that made me the alpha pimp I am. And I guarantee these principles can transform you from someone who just preaches the gospel to the CEO of a multi-million dollar, multi-national organization. And these principles will help you live as large as I do.

Of course, this is a good place to remind you about the book I wrote: “Pimping for Dummies.” And for a mere $19.95 you can have access to my monster best seller. I’ve supplied a link to let you order the book. Click here. But don’t order it, and definitely don’t read it until you are ready to up your game a thousand percent and you are ready to do whatever it takes to have your own P.I.M.P. Temple.

What kind of results can you expect? Take a look at the following pictures. The first picture is the outside of my church before I took over. The second one is the interior of the sad little church. They had just bought the 15 white chairs from Walmart the week before. The two chair in the lower left of the photograph belonged to one of the members.

Jesus Christ Apostolic Church – My First Church

Interior of JC Apostolic

Once I applied the principles which I lay out in “Pimping for Dummies” (on sale for $19.95 if you click here) it was a short time before the congregation started growing. Of course, none of the original members stayed. They didn’t share my vision for my church. They kept talking about the vision Jesus has for the church. Before too long, after several moves (mostly away from the poor community we had been in) we went from the dinky little church you saw earlier, to a church with the interior you see in the next picture. It took a few years but I was able to really enjoy the ride.

Interior of P.I.M.P Temple

This baby seats over five thousand people at once. Five thousand! And I can fill the seats during all three services on Sunday. Sometimes even the overflow rooms are packed out. When I have special events, they get packed out again, ripe for passing the collection plates. Wait. We use those big containers like the ones they use at the chicken place.

So, you ask, what are these principles I keep talking about? How do you make a church grow?

The first thing I have to do is define our terms. When some people read the phrase “make the church grow”, they might think I’m talking about helping the congregation grow in spiritual maturity. Let me disabuse you of that notion. You don’t want them to grow in spiritual maturity. You want them to grow in numbers. Take a look at just about any of the mega churches’ websites and you will see that they are always talking about how the pastor grew the church from some pathetic small number to thousands or tens of thousands of congregants.

And the bigger a church is, the easier it is for the members to live in anonymity. And the people will want to be there because they can look religious without being held accountable. They don’t have to actually be Christians.

Remember, it’s not about spiritual growth. It’s about numbers. And to grow the numbers, these are the things you should never do:

Never challenge the congregation spiritually. It turns out the pastor before me actually had expectations for the folks. He wanted them to study for themselves, to memorize scripture they have wrestled with to understand, and to pray the Scripture – in context.

Never give them specific biblical reasons for change. People will think you are trying to judge them. And rather than actually stand before a holy God, they’ll leave and find a place where they can be comfortable in their sin.

Never preach using an accurate understanding of Scripture. It’s not your job to explain what God has to say in Scripture. If you want to get large, you have to distort the message in just the right places. Scare the Bejesus out of them by telling them they are robbing God if they don’t support your latest project by giving their tithes and offering. Make them think the reference in Psalms (for you are the head and not the tail) refers to them and their finances.

“But Melvin,” you say. “You’ve only told me what I shouldn’t do. What should I do?”

That’s easy. And you’ll be surprised you didn’t think of these principles once I tell you. Of course, you can get greater detail in the book that’s on sale right now for just $19.95 at this link.

Here’s what you do:

Decide what you want them to think. Then preach those verses that you can best make say that. For example, one of the psalms says “Touch not God’s anointed” and someplace else it says “And do his prophet no harm”. At every opportunity tell them you are God’s anointed, that this is talking about the pastor, the elder, the bishop or whatever other title you decide to give yourself. And of course talking about you, questioning your teachings is the same as doing God’s prophet harm. Make sure they think that Malachi 2:10 is mandatory and that the storehouse is your church. Once you’ve loosened their hold on Scripture, you can make them think the storehouse is you. But don’t push that too soon. It can have some really awful blow-back that could take a few years to get past.

Hire some killer musicians and singers. Always have the keyboard playing in the background, ready to emphasize your statements and distract from the fact that you don’t have anything to say. And if your musician times it right, you should be able to get one-third to one-half the church to jump and shout. And an added benefit: once they get worked up, it’s a lot more likely they will bring cash money up to lay at your feet. And never, ever ask the musicians about their sexual orientation.

Bring in some big names. It doesn’t matter if you are Trinitarian and they are Oneness, if they deny the deity of Jesus Christ or not. It doesn’t even matter if the big name is under investigation, divorced several times or accused of accosting barely adult boys. The main qualifications are that the speakers have a mega church of their own, that they be a television personality and that they are willing to work with you to promote you. A plus is if they are willing to work alongside the unsaved or those hostile to the Gospel. Once you are able to afford their honorarium you can pick someone like Ken Ulmer, T. D. Jakes, Fred Price and a host of others. These people are guaranteed to draw the big crowds without you having to risk the crowd hearing a properly exegeted message.

Oh, and don’t forget, click here and you can get my book for $19.95. And I’ll be holding a Leadership conference near the end of the year. If you sign up now, you’ll get the book as a gift. The cost of the conference is a mere $527.56. But the return on your investment, if you use my principles, will be in the millions of dollars. We should have the information up in a couple of days. I think.

And remember: They’re the sheeple. They want to be fleeced. If you don’t someone else will.

There are some people who can take a bunch of balloons, put them together, and make a statue of Stuart, the Minion. Unfortunately, there are also lots of people, a lot of them standing behind pulpits every Sunday, who can take a collection of Scriptures and make them say what ever they want them to say.

How do you avoid the bozos who would use Scripture to separate you from your hard earned money, telling you that you are glorifying God in the process? The primary way is to take steps to see if you church is healthy.

Mark Dever, from Nine Marks (IX Marks) has put together a book that gives a thumbnail sketch of what makes up a healthy church. You can find it here and by clicking on the image below. It’s called “What is a Healthy Church?”

One of the characteristics of a healthy church is expositional preaching.

In the words of Mr. Dever, expositional preaching is

…the kind of preaching that, quite simply, exposes God’s Word. It takes a particular passage of Scripture, explains that passage, and then applies the meaning of the passage to the life of the congregation…A commitment to expositional preaching is a commitment to hear God’s Word.”

Expositional preaching is not reading a verse and then preaching on a topic loosely related to that verse. The preacher, in general, will not use such phrases as “While I was praying last night, God showed me what this verse means.”

It’s not preaching to the congregation on a topic and using biblical texts only to back up his point. The pastor should never simply pile up Scripture in an effort to rebuke someone in the audience.

It is insisting that the point of the biblical text be the point of the sermon using that biblical text.

For example, we will often hear 1 Corinthians 13 preached during a wedding. Counselors will use portions of it to help married couples experiencing difficulties. But if we are going to make the point of the text the point of the sermon, the point of the sermon will have to be having the right attitudes in the use of spiritual gifts. The section, stuck between chapters 12 and 14 has everything to do with the Corinthians and how badly they were relating to each other as believers in exercising their gifts. It has nothing specifically to do with husbands and wives. You might try Ephesians 5:22-25 for that.

If a preacher quotes Malachi 3 and then insists you need to give ten percent to his church, the point of his sermon is not the point of the text. If he tells you that you must shout and dance as a part of worship because Jesus tells us the Son of Man, like the snake in the desert, must be lifted up, the point of his sermon is not the same as the point of the text.

What the preacher says when he says these kinds of things may or may not be true. But he certainly is not speaking that which God wants spoken to the congregation using His word. Instead, he is preaching what HE wants to preach to the people, using God’s Word. And I can say without fear of error that virtually all Pulpit Pimps use God’s Word to say what they want to say, not what God wants said.

You want to escape the pimps? Get to a healthy church. Get to a church that, for starters, engages in expositional preaching. Click on the image below to get an idea of what the functions and activities of a healthy church should be. And I guarantee you, standing when the pastor walks up to the pulpit is not one of those activities.

Oh, and if you want a fairly non-technical description of expositional preaching so you can recognize it when you see it (or at least when your pastor is preparing a sermon in keeping with the general principles) click the image below.